The Twitterverse eulogized evangelical leader Chuck Colson this morning after a CBN News report of his death was tweeted ’round the world. One problem: Colson was still alive.

Hours after the article first appeared, CBN scrubbed the story from its website. The news organization issued an apology, but not for misreporting the story. Instead, CBN blamed an erroneous tweet for “crediting CBN News.”

https://twitter.com/#!/CBNNews/status/192927488945569792

Just an erroneous tweet? As these tweets demonstrate, the story was published at CBN:

https://twitter.com/#!/CortaPelo1/status/192912812945838080

https://twitter.com/#!/dseiv1/status/192871800919699456

https://twitter.com/#!/glory_and_grace/status/192862716602499073

The link included in those tweets leads to a “Page Not Found” message, but the Google preview lives on:

A tweet crediting CBN News with the story didn’t simply materialize out of the Twitter ether. This was not a hacking or an Internet hoax falsely attributed the news outlet. The article was published by CBN on the CBN website and was not replaced with a retraction or apology.

This is a case study in how not to handle a retraction.

Mistakes happen. It’s how a news organization handles those mistakes that matters–transparency and accountability are crucial.

Readers who missed CBN’s strangely worded apology tweet and those who reach the deep-sixed article via Google or an email link have no way of knowing the story is false. There is no apology or correction: